The ancient maritime republic of Pisa is one of Italy's grand cities. This sleepy university town boasts one of the most peaceful and beautiful piazze in all of Italy, an expansive grassy lawn studded with serene Gothic-Romanesque buildings of white- and gray-banded marble and delicate colonnaded arcading. But it'll forever be known chiefly for that square's cathedral bell tower: It just can't for the life of itself stick straight up.
The brawny Medici-created port of Livorno, to the south, is Tuscany's second-largest city, but is perhaps unique in the region for its lack of art (beyond some Tuscan "Impressionists") and dearth of decorative churches. The seafood in its restaurants, though, is some of the best in the country, and its back-street canals add a quasi-Venetian romantic touch to this Tuscan city.
The green islands of the Tuscan archipelago sitting off the Etruscan Riviera shoreline are dotted with some fine beaches and fantastic nature preserves. Most, however, are off-limits unless you're doing 10 to 20 in one of their high-security prisons. But the granddaddy of the group, Elba, is a high-power summer tourist destination. It's Italy's third-largest island and a veritable mineral horde that has been mined since before the Etruscans. Elba is famous as the short-lived kingdom of exiled ex-emperor Napoleon and popular for its colorful fishing towns, island cuisine, inland hiking, and beaches.
The Maremma is Tuscany's deep south, a little-visited province with deep Etruscan roots, crumbling ancient hill towns built atop dramatic tufa outcrops, and snow-white cattle watched over by the butteri, some of the world's last true-grit cowboys.
